Graphics are the easiest way to communicate information. The creation of graphic layouts or charts has progressed from manual pen and paper generation techniques to computer aided techniques. Previously developed computer graphics programs or applications generally provide clean, professional graphics in a fraction of the time required for hand-drawn graphics. Unfortunately, these computer programs can be complicated and may require high-end computer systems in order to run the software program.
Graphics are useful in presenting many types of information. Often, graphics are useful in representing the relationships of people in an organization, groups within an organization, or the steps in a given process. These relationships are typically designated through relational spacing and orientation between related symbols, as well as through the use of a line showing exchanges or interfaces between the symbols in a graphics chart. Family trees, organizational charts, cause-and-effect diagrams, pyramid charts, and flow charts are some examples of graphics charts that may be useful in presenting information.
Several prior computer graphics systems have been developed for generating graphics charts. As previously noted, these charts often require a line or lines be shown in the chart to show the relationship between symbols in the chart. Routing a line between symbols in a chart may pose difficulties to a computer graphics system. In the past, such computer systems did not have the ability to route a line through the symbols in a chart without piercing or breaking through an intermediate symbol. Such systems employed "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" rule or variations thereof to route a line through the chart or consider only the symbols being connected by the line and ignore whether the line pierces other symbols in the chart. Unfortunately, such systems would often pierce or break through the symbols in the chart. Graphics charts generated this way lack aesthetic appeal for this reason.
In the prior computer graphics systems, in order to route a line between two points while avoiding the symbols in the chart it was necessary that each segment of the line be treated as a separate line that had to be drawn by the user. There was no way to automatically control the placement of segments in a line to route the line through a chart while avoiding the symbols in the chart. This may make generating a graphics chart a tedious undertaking.